Recently out on DVD is “Take Out”. You may remember this movie on the Asian American film festival circuit a few years back. The film is about the story of a young Chinese immigrant who rides silently through the dark rain soaked streets of Manhattan and comes face to face with countless apartment dwellers who simply see him as an anonymous and faceless delivery boy. (Kind reminds us of Asian Americans and Poverty in NYC.) Here’s a synopsis:

Korean-American actor Charles Jang is the main star in Take Out. He plays Ming Ding, a Chinese illegal immigrant who works as a deliveryman at a take-out restaurant and is struggling to make ends meet. Ming is behind with payments on his huge debt to the smugglers who brought him to the United States, and the collectors have given him until the end of the day to deliver the money that is due. After borrowing most of the money from friends and relatives, Ming realizes that the remainder must come from the day’s delivery tips. In order to do so, he must make more than double his average daily income.

The gritty film style uses the camera to follow Ming on his deliveries throughout the upper Manhattan neighborhood where social and economic extremes exist side by side. You really feel for Ming Ding as he tries to make money on his deliveries. The film makes you realize how difficult it is for illegal immigrants to survive in America. Filmmakers Shih-Ching Tsou and Sean Baker, who between them wrote, directed, produced, shot and edited the film, have been winning awards and receiving glowing reviews wherever the film has screened.

Get Take Out on DVD at Amazon.

Take Out Trailer